Puerto Rico will lay off 16,000 public workers

Nation & World

Immediately after announcing the layoffs Friday of more than 16,000 public employees, Puerto Rico government officials went on the defensive.

The job cuts are in addition to 2,500 layoffs earlier this year. The cuts are expected to raise the unemployment rate in the commonwealth to 17 percent. It is currently close to 16 percent, the highest for any U.S. territory.

In an interview with the Sentinel, Lt. Gov. Kenneth McClintock said the layoffs would spare Puerto Rico's credit rating from being downgraded to junk status, which he said would have had chaotic consequences. "The economists predicted that the downgrading of the credit would've caused the unemployment rate to jump to 25 percent," McClintock said, adding that "130,000 would've joined the unemployment lines."

The island went into a recession before the mainland and is facing its third straight year of negative economic growth.

"We're facing a deficit of $3.2 billion," McClintock said. "That's [proportionately] larger than California's. They were spending 16 percent over their revenue. We were spending at the tune of 40 percent over the money that was coming in."

The layoffs, which will save the government $2 billion, were criticized by labor unions as "ill intended" and "unjust." Members of different unions took to the streets Friday throughout the island to protest. A united front of union leaders called for an island-wide strike beginning Oct. 15.

"This government is wrong," Aida DM-maz, president of the Puerto Rico's Teachers Association, told El Nuevo DM-ma, the island's largest newspaper. "This is the biggest injustice that can be done against working people by a group of people who've never experienced poverty."

JosM-i Rodriguez BM-aez, president of the Federation of Workers, which represents 20,000 public employees, said his members were being "massacred." "The situation is worse than ever," Rodriguez said to Primera Hora, another local newspaper. "We don't see the light at the end of the tunnel."

In the past four decades, the commonwealth's government became the island's largest employer. Payroll represented 70 percent of the government's budget. Gov. Luis FortuM-qo and his administration are coming under heavy criticism because of campaign promises that denied the need for layoffs. McClintock said those statements were made because the previous administration had misstated the crisis by at least $2 billion.

"Government became the cure-all for Puerto Rico's economy," McClintock said. "That doesn't work in a capitalist society."

Most layoffs will take effect Nov. 6. The administration is setting aside $1 billion to help those laid off. That will pay for health insurance for six months, up to $5,000 per person for retraining and $2,500 for relocation if they find employment elsewhere.